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Frodo was hit multiple times by orc-arrows, all of which bounced off him.

Borri wrote:Sam got a hit on the head in the Chamber of Mazarbul.

Having been hit once is not exactly an indication of being easy to hit.

Stormcrow wrote:Frodo was hit multiple times by orc-arrows, all of which bounced off him.

Okay. One hobbit out of four was easy to hit. Check. Maybe he never took Small Folk...or the arrows were from small orcs (which would ignore that Virtue). Either way, hobbits being potentially hard to hit seems pretty consistent with the books and reasonable to me.

Do you have any textual evidence to support this notion, or is it just how you think things should be?

It's fine either way, but let's not go saying that our own inventions are what Tolkien wrote.

Stormcrow wrote:Do you have any textual evidence to support this notion, or is it just how you think things should be?

Um, textual evidence in the 'cite this' sense is impossible in regards to a negative. My statement was 'this doesn't happen too often'. That's a literally impossible statement to 'cite references' for, since it's about the absence of something in the text not its presence.

You, on the other hand, are citing a positive statement (something that does happen) and could thus provide textual citations, but have not. I don't really expect you to, because seriously, that's a lot of work, but it's possible for you, and not for me.

Stormcrow wrote:It's fine either way, but let's not go saying that our own inventions are what Tolkien wrote.

It's the impression I was left with after reading LotR. I dunno to what degree it matches Tolkien's vision, but I think it's a defensible position based on the text.

Aragorn was never hit so Dunedain must have high Parry, too. Same for Legolas.

Boromir looked like a porcupine so MoMT must have low Parry.

Hmmm...not sure this analysis is working for me.

Glorelendil wrote:Aragorn was never hit so Dunedain must have high Parry, too. Same for Legolas.

Legolas, being an Elf, probably does have high Parry, and is an archer to boot (limiting the number of attacks that get aimed his way). I admit, I have no real excuse for Aragorn, but see below.

Glorelendil wrote:Boromir looked like a porcupine so MoMT must have low Parry.

Boromir was outnumbered. A lot. I'm not sure what happened in that one incident is a good basis for low Parry. Though the amount of punishment he took makes a lot more sense if you assume he had Onward Into Battle, now that you mention it...

Which would, actually, result in him having a pretty mediocre Parry score if he was using it (though he'd be immune to becoming Weary, which is cool and fits the scene well).

Glorelendil wrote:Hmmm...not sure this analysis is working for me.

It wasn't really intended as analysis, more as a 'this happened in the books, therefore it seems reasonable that the rules reflect it'. Things also happen in the books that are super unlikely by the rules, and that's fine too, but it seems reasonable to me that there be in-game ways to reflect things that occur in the books. Not required, but certainly reasonable.

I would've been entirely cool with the Dunedain having a Parry-boosting virtue, or better Wits to reflect Aragorn not getting hit much, for example.

Remember, this started with someone complaining that hobbits having high Parry wasn't appropriate. I was just making the argument that it seemed as appropriate as anything else.

I was being entirely facetious (which I hoped would be obvious) but trying to make the point that counting the number of times the characters in the book get hit and using that to predict their cultural Parry scores is pointless.

And really it's for the exact same reason that I suggested the Aragorn vs. Nazgul battle can be reconstructed using the rules, not whether it is likely to unfold the way it did in the book. (I won't insult anybody by actually typing out that reason.)

P.S. I completely agree that it's reasonable for Hobbits to have high Parry, but entirely because they are described as remarkably small and quick, not because of a statistical analysis of battle scenes in the source texts. For me this does not automatically equate with prowess in battle. It seems as though for others it does.

Deadmanwalking wrote:It wasn't really intended as analysis, more as a 'this happened in the books, therefore it seems reasonable that the rules reflect it'.

Those things that happen in the books are the textual evidence I'm asking for.

Glorelendil wrote:I was being entirely facetious (which I hoped would be obvious) but trying to make the point that counting the number of times the characters in the book get hit and using that to predict their cultural Parry scores is pointless.

Sorry, my bad.

It's hard to judge tone on the internet.

Glorelendil wrote:And really it's for the exact same reason that I suggested the Aragorn vs. Nazgul battle can be reconstructed using the rules, not whether it is likely to unfold the way it did in the book. (I won't insult anybody by actually typing out that reason.)

I really and seriously didn't intend for this to become a huge thing. I was just saying that, after reading the books, I'd certainly come away with the impression that hobbits were usually hard to hit. That's it.

Glorelendil wrote:P.S. I completely agree that it's reasonable for Hobbits to have high Parry, but entirely because they are described as remarkably small and quick, not because of a statistical analysis of battle scenes in the source texts. For me this does not automatically equate with prowess in battle. It seems as though for others it does.

Which is a little weird to me, and was sorta my original point.

Stormcrow wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:It wasn't really intended as analysis, more as a 'this happened in the books, therefore it seems reasonable that the rules reflect it'.

Those things that happen in the books are the textual evidence I'm asking for.

And, again, how am I to do this? My statement is 'there aren't a lot of incidences of hobbits getting hit in the books'. I can't exactly cite specific instances of something not happening.

All right! I give up. You want to claim "this happened in the book" is the reason for interpreting the rules in a certain way, but then you can't point to any actual thing that "happened in the book" that applies. Forgive me for being utterly baffled.